LATEST ADDITIONS

It's a personal thing, perhaps a shortcoming: I don't care for harps, having never heard a piece of harp music I found appealing. Truthfully, that didn't suddenly change when I heard French Canadian harpist Isabeau Corriveau perform in the Embassy Suites room outfitted with hi-fi gear from On a Higher Note, distributor Philip O'Hanlon's company. (O’Hanlon can be seen on the right in the photo.) But Corriveau is a fetching presence and a helluva musician, and it was impressive to listen to her play along to A Leap of Faith, a vinyl disc of her own music. With eyes closed, I had a hard time reliably delineating the sonic boundary between live instrument and recorded music.

Remarkably, much of the Embassy Suites' 10th floor was taken up by relative newcomer Fidelity Imports, an import and distribution company started four years ago by industry veteran Steve Jain, who'd held management positions at Klipsch and Pioneer. Jain, 46, likes to move fast. After first signing three British companies in short order—Cyrus Audio (amplification), Q Acoustics (speakers), and QED Cable (duh)—he looked to other parts of the globe for further expansion. These days, his stable includes 17 brands, including Slovakia's Neo (high-end audio racks), Italy's Audia Flight (amps, preamps, CD players), and Japan's Soulnote (amplifiers and other stereo components).

What does the MC in MC Audiotech stand for? Marvelously Cutting-Edge? Master 'Coustician? I would've guessed Mark Conti; Conti is, after all, the founder of the Pennsylvania-based boutique brand. But the man himself told me—tongue in cheek, I reckon—that MC is actually short for Musica cordis, a Latin phrase that means "Music from the heart." Works for me, especially after I heard his latest loudspeaker, a blond beauty called the TL-12.

If you live in Maine, and it's wintertime, and a kind magazine editor calls offering a getaway to the Florida International Audio Expo, what do you say? In my case, it was Yes please. And so, yesterday, I arrived at the Embassy Suites Westshore in sunny Tampa, suddenly without the need for scarves and double-insulated boots, but with my usual hankering for a serious hi-fi fix. I'll be getting a three-day series of them, in fact. Lucky me.

Within seconds after hitting play on the 2006 remaster of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," played back with the dCS Vivaldi Apex DAC, what I thought would be a lovely opportunity to wax nostalgic morphed into something far deeper. The first few bars of the song grabbed us like nothing else we'd listened to over the past 10 days. Flack's complete calm, unwavering focus, and unapologetic intimacy took our breath away. The soundstage was wide, the silence profound, the presentation pristine. The beauty of Flack's voice and passion, enhanced by John Pizzarelli's guitar, Ron Carter's bass, and Ray Lucas's drums, transformed the music room into a holy sanctuary. Toward the end of the first verse, right before "To the dark and the endless skies," I rose long enough to turn off the lights. We sat together in silence, barely breathing.

Steely Dan: Countdown to Ecstasy
ABC/Geffen Records/UMG, Analogue Productions UHQR 0010-45 (2 LPs). 2022.
Gary Katz, Chad Kassem, prods.; Roger Nichols, Miss Natalie, Bernie Grundman, engs.
Performance *****
Sonics *****

They were elitist brainiacs. The lyrics were too obscure. Their rhythmic, irresistible pop confections resisted easy description. Yet their debut album, Can't Buy a Thrill, was a surprise hit. The band's response? Knowing that their sales success had bought them goodwill at ABC, their record label, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker went the integrity route. They forgot about hit singles, embraced risk, and fearlessly pushed the genre envelope in the direction of saxophone breaks, funk rhythms, and bluesy explorations.

The result was Countdown to Ecstasy.

There has been much discussion lately about ChatGPT, the machine-learning– based chatbot from OpenAI. Some experts say it will soon make human writers obsolete. Will that include human hi-fi reviewers?

I decided to engage ChatGPT in an exploratory conversation; think of it as a sort of job interview.